This evaluation report provides a brief review of the National Science Foundation (NSF) planning grant, Creating an Early Childhood STEM Ecosystem, as of August 2019. The purpose of the evaluation was to provide an external, independent overview of the work completed and some of the lessons learned to date.
Over the past decade, science festival expos have emerged as popular opportunities for practicing scientists to engage in education outreach with public audiences. In this paper, a partial proportional odds model was used to analyze 5,498 surveys collected from attendees at 14 science expos around the United States. Respondents who report that they interacted with a scientist rated their experiences more positively than those who reported no such interaction on five categories: overall experience, learning, inspiration, fun, and awareness of STEM careers. The results indicate that scientists
The Brains On! exploratory research study was guided by three overarching research questions:
Who is the audience for Brains On! and what are their motivations for listening to children’s science podcasts?
How are Brains On! listeners using the podcast and engaging with its content?
What kinds of impacts does Brains On! have on its audiences?
These questions were answered through a three-phase mixed-methods research design. Each phase informed the next, providing additional insights into answering the research questions. Phase 1 was a review of a sample of secondary data in the
This document is the final summative evaluation report written by EDC, the external evaluator of the STEM Guides project. The report concludes that the project was highly ambitious, with many dynamic and evolving pieces. It was deemed successful as a model of brokering connections between students aged 10-18 and STEM resources and opportunities in rural Maine communities. The STEM Guides program contributed to the increase in STEM awareness within each community, as well as connecting youth with interesting and relevant STEM experiences.
Are you interested in an innovative approach to collecting a large amount of formative data via Facebook? RMC Research Corporation conducted a formative evaluation for Oregon Public Broadcasting (OPB) to ensure the social media tag lines and clips created by OPB engage the target audiences. The primary target audience for the Hacking Your Mind (HYM) television series is the PBS primetime television viewing audience. According to the PBS Research Audience Insight 2016 Annual Report, the PBS primetime audience is older (median age of 65) and college educated (43% have a 4-year degree). To
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Intellectual Merit: Project RESET utilized a responsive teaching approach to engage youth in critical STEM literacy on the topic of climate change. Video recordings of the afterschool program, artifacts from the program, and interviews with youth were analyzed to better understand how youth supported each other’s participation in science discourse. The team outlined four themes of critical STEM literacy (CSL) and identified a “constellation” of knowledge, dispositions, and practices within each of those themes. Finally, Project RESET demonstrated the potential benefits of multi-modal analysis
The goal for this research study was to determine the role of the SciGirls gender-equitable strategies on participating youths’ STEM identity changes in 16 participating SciGirls’ programs across the nation. The definition of STEM identity was based on Eccles (2007), Carlone and Johnson (2007) and Calabrese Barton and colleagues (2013). According to these researchers, individuals must have a positive STEM identity in order to persist in STEM careers. This positive STEM identity is affected by an individual’s expectations of success in STEM and the value they see in STEM and STEM careers
This report summarizes the evaluation outcomes of the Collaborative Project Management (CoPM) Institute project, a two-day convening centered on bringing proven project management skills and approaches in the for-profit world to the informal science education (ISE) community to support effective collaborations and successful outcomes. The CoPM Institute was conceptualized as a pilot effort to test the effectiveness of porting of tools and frameworks for collaborative project management from the business/for-profit environment to advance the following project goals:
Build the capacity of
This game is used to measure whether program participation helps to evelop the child’s ability to accurately predict or infer an animal’s emotional state.